Thursday, July 19, 2007

Hommage to Witold K.

For many many years his melancholy paintings have been staring at me, while I searched for his name, his face, his painter-hand somewhere. We didn't meet in Paris, as we could.
I found him now, celebrating a long and wonderful career and am paying my hommage.
I can see him in the past with Jaques Prévert, whom we both loved, for his poetry, his genius.
And can see him with Stephen Hawking by the picture of a black hole model.
Black were those times when he fought for freedom in a country closed, as if forever.
But there's no forever closure in art, the real name for freedom.
I cherish this fragile, slightly stained watercolour, precisely for its frailty.Those characters turn their backs to a destiny they ignore but fear, they are not going, they are being taken, and that's the worst of cruelties.
In silence, to be taken, in silence hiding their face, as if it could change their destiny.
It reminds us of what we are, whoever and wherever we may be.